Selina was not in the slightest degree annoyed by all this. It always had been so in Austria, and probably always would be so. She had expected nothing else. And Lato,--what had he expected? he who understood such matters better than she did? A miracle, perhaps; at least an exception in his favour.
His life in Vienna was torture to him. He made front against his former world, defied it, even vilified it, and was possessed by a hungry desire for what he had lost, for what he had prized so little when it was naturally his own. If he could but have found something to replace what he had resigned! Sincerity, earnestness, a deeper grasp of life, elevation of thought,--all of which he might have found among the best of the bourgeoisie,--he had sufficient intellect and refinement to have enjoyed. Perhaps under such influences there was stuff in him of a kind to be remodelled, and he might have become a useful, capable man. But the circle in which he was forced to live was not that of the true bourgeoisie. It was an inorganic mass of rich people and idlers tossed together, all with titles of yesterday, who cared for nothing in the world save money-getting and display,--a world in which the men played at languid dulness and the women at frivolity, because they thought it 'chic,' in which all wanted to be 'fast,' to make a sensation, to be talked of in the newspapers,--a world which, with ridiculous exclusiveness, boasted of its anti-Semitic prejudices, and in which the money acquired with such unnatural celerity had no room for free play, so that the golden calf, confined within so limited an arena, cut the most extraordinary capers. These people spent their time in perfecting themselves in aristocratic demeanour and in talking alternately of good manners, elegant toilets, and refined menus. The genuine patrician world of trade held itself aloof from this tinsel society, or only accidentally came into contact with it.
Lato's was a very unpleasant experience. The few people of solid worth whom he met at his mother-in-law's avoided him. His sole pleasure in life was his little son, who daily grew plumper, prettier, merrier. He would stretch out his arms to his father when the merest baby, and crow with delight. What a joy it was for Lato to clasp the little creature in his arms!
The boy was just fifteen months old when the first real quarrel took place between Lato and his wife, and estranged them for life.
Hitherto Lato had had the management and right of disposal of his wife's property, and although more than one disagreeable remark anent his extravagance had fallen from her lips he had taken pains not to heed them. But one day he bought a pair of horses for which he had been longing, paying an amateur price for them.
He was so delighted with his purchase that he immediately drove the horses in the Prater to try them. On his return home he was received by Selina with a very cross face. She had heard of his purchase, and asked about the horses.
He praised them with enthusiasm. Forgetting for the moment all the annoyances of his position, he cried, "Come and look at them!"
"No need," she made answer. "You did not ask my opinion before buying them; it is of no consequence now whether I like them or not."
He bit his lip.
"What did you pay for them?" she asked. He told her the price; she shrugged her shoulders and laughed contemptuously. "So they told me," she said. "I would not believe it!"